Mike Bryant: As A Matter of Fact

Before Mike Bryant joined the Discovery Education team as a District Manager and now serves as Director of Instructional Implementation, he had successful careers working as a director of children’s programs, administering to community learning centers, and teaching with technology in the classroom. Mike’s presentation description is intriguing, and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

There are probably many things you encounter that you THINK you have a good understanding of…most likely you think you have a great understanding of things like rain or the Grand Canyon. Not exactly. Join us to learn about phenomenon that you’d think we’d have a better understanding of, but don’t. We’ll showcase and share ways you can use these hooks in science and beyond.

Mike began with science and went interactive with his audience with a lesson on science. DEN members are passing water with string. Very interesting demo. Use kitchen string and wet it first; you may get wet but that’s ok in a science classroom.

What followed is an explanation of why ice is slippery, and Mike’s session will be listed at the bottom of this post so you can view it for yourself.

The next simple question: why does it rain? The importance and the how is explained by Magnum, PI, aka Tom Selleck. Need to find that video. Live audience is reporting out their answers on Padlet.

Next interactive and collaborative project is a dirty job. They are working with basters, flour, water. They are trying to capture what a raindrop looks like in flour. They make a droplet with a baster, put the droplet in the flower, then sift out the droplets carefully. They should remain. And they do, but they do not look the same. Is bacteria the cause of rain. It’s swept up into the atmosphere and then creates rain. So are we disrupting climate. Are micro-organisms the cause of rain.

Next question: how does the earth’s interior work. Audience working on Padlet. Mike says we really don’t have a good understanding of the depth of the interior. There’s a race to get to the center of the earth. Or to the mantle. Russia and the US are racing, but they haven’t gotten past the earth’s crust. Would this be a good question for a classroom.

Next question: Mike’s version: what is this stuff? Real question: what is space made of. Padlet used. We only know about 4% of the stuff of the universe, Mike says. The other 96%–unknown. Mike says scientists are still working on the unknown.